The ISD Board’s Annual Retreat

Greetings from the ISD Board of Trustees, who spent last weekend together at our Annual Retreat. The Annual Retreat is an opportunity for Board members to:

receive governance training so that we have the right skills to undertake our work,

take time to discuss in depth some of the important issues for the school for 2017-2018,

develop our Board goals for the year ahead, and

form committees to work towards achieving those goals.

Teresa Arpin joined us to facilitate our three-day program. Teresa works with schools around the world to support good governance, strategic planning, and leadership. This is the second year that Teresa has facilitated our Board Retreat.

Trustee Sadia Asim launched our retreat with an exercise in which we each offered two words that describe ISD for us. Here’s what they look like when we put them in a Wordle, a program that highlights words that are repeated, showing their prominence in our discussion:

Our governance training used hypothetical situations to prompt us to think about what the right action would be for a Board to take in different situations. Teresa guided us using a method called “generative discussion” to really speak openly about important issues that are before the Board at the moment. We also took time to get to know each other better and the ways we like to learn and contribute to the group.

We developed draft Board goals for the year. I will share these with the ISD community in my Jag Journal article following our September Board meeting, once we have settled and voted on the final goals.

We also formed committees, where the bulk of the Board’s work takes place. If you are interested in learning more about the committees and their work, please contact the Committee Chairs via our email address: boardbox@isd.sn.

The 2017-2018 Chairs are:

Finance: Thiaba Camara Sy, Treasurer

Buildings and Grounds: Aylin Karahan, Trustee

Policy: Jennifer Davis, Trustee

Governance and Development: Jennifer Grant, Vice-Chair

Our next Board meeting will be held in the ISD Administration Building Conference Room on Thursday 7 September 2017 at 6.00 pm (refreshments served at 5.30 pm). As always, parents and guardians of current ISD students, and faculty, are welcome to attend as observers.

Questions and comments can be sent to the ISD Board email address: boardbox@isd.sn which is checked regularly by our Secretary, Jonathan Scott.

We hope that you have had a great start to the school year and we look forward to serving you in the months ahead.